Indonesia betrayed : how development fails / Elizabeth Fuller Collins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Collins, Elizabeth Fuller.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Economic development projects--Indonesia.

Economic development projects.

Economic assistance--Indonesia.

Economic assistance.

Indonesia--Economic conditions.

Indonesia.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (289 p.)

Place of Publication:

Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, c2007.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

Supporters of neoliberalism claim that free markets lead to economic growth, the creation of a middle class, and the establishment of democratically accountable governments. Critics point to a widening gap between rich and poor as countries compete to win foreign investment, and to the effects on the poor of neoliberal programs that restrict funding for health, education, and welfare. This book offers a ground-level view from Sumatra of the realities behind these debates during the final years of Suharto's New Order and the beginning of a transition to more democratic government. The author's wealth of primary data from ten years of interviews and local newspaper reportage (1994-2004) shows how farmers and laborers were dispossessed by both government policies and crony capitalism.Elizabeth Collins relates the stories of populist efforts in South Sumatra to combat "development" policies responsible for producing extreme poverty and allowing corruption to flourish. She describes how student-led NGOs worked with farmers fighting to retain their livelihoods in the lowland forests of South Sumatra. She reports on a local branch of the Indonesian Environmental Forum as it battled multinational companies and Indonesian conglomerates responsible for damage to the environment; on contract workers protesting exploitation by a company with ties to a Suharto crony; and on systemic corruption under the New Order, which spread throughout all levels of government and into civil society organizations. She examines the sometimes strained relationships between Islamists and human-rights activists, arguing that there is no inherent contradiction between Islam and democratic politics. Collins concludes that for real change to occur, neoliberal capitalism must be recognized as a utopian ideology; democracy, imperfect as it is, offers the best hope for sustainable development in Indonesia.

Contents:

Land of the nine rivers

Reformasi in South Sumatra

Who owns the land?

No forests, no future

Struggling for workers' rights

'Where's my cut?': the state and corruption

Local autonomy : democracy in name only?

Islam and the quest for justice

Indonesia in global context: development, free-market capitalism, and democracy.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-253) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 28. Aug 2019)

ISBN:

9780824862985

0824862988

9781435666504

143566650X

OCLC:

257426133